Technical Director Plans Youth Football Program


Liberia Football Association (LFA) Technical Director Henry Brown says he is working on developing a youth program for players to undergo before being call to the senior national team. During an recent interview at his office at the LFA headquarter in Monrovia, Brown said he has been given a term of reference to monitor and design programs for the national teams and development programs for the entire country.

When questioned about some of his initial programs designed, Brown pointed out that right now he is monitoring the national team. “Right now we (the national team) are in a competition- the preliminary rounds of the South Africa 2013 Nations Cup qualifier against Namibia, and will be setting up a youth program soon for the national Under-20 ahead of their international tournaments later this year in North Africa” he noted.

‘We are going to create a pattern to get into the national team like the program that was designed back in 1997-99. We will also be working and designing plans on how players are guided from their elementary football through to the division level, National Under-17, 20 and 23 before being picked for the senior team’ Brown narrated.

The technical director will partner with the educational office's Joseph Tamba in packaging a training curriculum for rural and urban coaches to enhance the development of grassroots football that will create the path to identify potential talents from out of the city for inclusion, he said.

Those programs when design will be presented to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and FIFA for funding and if those international bodies see it attractive they will fund it, but the government of every country usually pumps in cash to keep and advance the programs, he explained.

Most of those programs are going to be designed with school time allocation in the format to strengthen the kids' educational foundation while they are pursuing football as their short term careers, Because a huge number of the current top-level players in our leagues now are faced with educational problems, we are going to fight in eradicating it from Liberia’s up coming generation of players, the technical director noted.

Browne, a former national team player and coach and a league club president, said nothing is strange to him when it comes to Liberian football. He has worked in the administrative and technical facets of Liberian football. He was head coach of the Liberian youth team with the likes of Dulee Johnson, Natus Ponnie and Dioh Williams that won the Gothia and Dana Cups in Sweden and Denmark in the late 1990s.

He said he is working with all areas of Liberian football to see a better and stronger team. Addressing the issue of Thomas Kojo and Kelvin Sebwe not been a licensed coaches, he said the two coaches have worked with the recently dismissed Italian Roberto Landi and they understand the players that are onboard now for the qualifier on the 29th of this month against Namibia in Monrovia.

Discussions are afloat regarding the licenses issue: they will be writing the CAF Football License B Certificate later this year and both of them are interested in honoring the process, Browne added.

“The relevance of bringing in an international coach I can not say yes or no now until the FA reach that decision, but we want to build our local coaches and that will need an importation of an experienced coach to provide guidance for the local guys that will take over in the future” he added.